


The Intruder

by ZoS



Category: The Devil Wears Prada (2006)
Genre: Angst, Conflict Resolution, Established Relationship, F/F, Fluff, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-18
Updated: 2020-03-18
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:28:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23203969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZoS/pseuds/ZoS
Summary: Andy should have known he would come back, but she hadn't anticipated his return to occur while Miranda Priestly was in their bed.
Relationships: Miranda Priestly/Andrea Sachs
Comments: 21
Kudos: 336





	The Intruder

**Author's Note:**

> So, the good news is I started a new job, which I actually love, about a month and a half ago. The bad news is it was a new routine to get used to, pushing hobbies to the background. But the good news is we've been put on unpaid leave for at least a month thanks to COVID-19 so I finally finished this fic I started in early January. The bad news is, y'know, I'm not getting paid :/
> 
> Anyway, happy quarantining, y'all! Hope this helps with the cabin fever; I sure am starting to go crazy.

Andy should have known he would come back; after all, most of his belongings still filled the apartment: his books and DVDs, the professional cookware he'd invested so much money in, the ugly sweater with the brown, blue, and yellow stripes and stray threads he deemed his "lucky sweater" because it had apparently helped him pass his SATs and "catch chicks." She should have foreseen an event in which Nate would want to reclaim all of those possessions, but she hadn't anticipated his return to occur while Miranda Priestly was in their bed.

"Are you hungry?" Andy murmured and nibbled right behind Miranda's ear. The skin there tasted of salty sweat and remnants of perfume. "Want me to whip up a salad?"

She could ask these questions now, when what they had went a little beyond physicality and primal need. The sex--earth-shattering in its own right--was still the main component in what was not yet a relationship: the glue holding together all the parts too raw to form something substantial and stable on their own. But while they hadn't exactly gotten it out of their systems, the urgency with which they'd approached their initial encounters had abated, clearing the way for a slower, more thorough exploration of more than bodies and sensations.

"Or we can order in." A lick to Miranda's collar bone and a resultant, almost inaudible gasp.

"I'm not hungry," Miranda answered and promptly urged her closer with a hand on the nape of her neck. It was Andy, however, who closed the distance and when their lips made contact, it didn't matter who the initiator was. Their bodies were still cooling off from the previous round, a frenzied, sticky tangle of limbs and mouths, and even so, when the hint of a tongue presented itself, Andy felt the familiar frisson of excitement deep within her stomach, the tingle between the legs that burned with anticipation and demanded more, now-now-now, and might have gotten it, too, if not for Miranda pushing on her shoulders.

"What was that?"

Kiss-delirious and feeble with need, Andy's mind took longer to register the sound to which Miranda was referring, a dull thud that could have been a million things that didn't matter beyond that moment.

"Thin walls," she mumbled by way of explanation and leaned in for another taste of Miranda's lips, only to be stalled again.

"You mean to tell me your neighbors have been hearing us this whole time?" The arched tone and raised eyebrow should have been threatening, and would have if not for the accompanying rosy cheeks and the filthy things Andy had just done to her. As it was, Andy could allow herself to find humor in the situation.

"Well." She smirked, stroking a gentle hand down the slope of a thigh. The skin below her fingers was warm and inviting. "They definitely have been hearing you." Any reaction Miranda might have produced--a laugh, an indignant scowl--was stolen by Andy's kiss, and then there were no more words spoken, only bodies desperate for touch, sheets being rearranged as positions shifted. And then--

"Andy?" Another sound. This one was undeniably different: it was the sound of confusion and bewilderment with the well-known hints of betrayal. It wasn't the sound of an inanimate object either, something that could be mistaken for a piece of furniture moving or, for that matter, a door. And lastly, this sound was anything but dull; it was close and loud, echoing off the walls of the small apartment with its disbeliving gravitas, and just like that Andy and Miranda jumped apart on the bed.

The sheets already covered anything that should not be exposed to anyone outside of that moment, but they were clutched against chests and pulled around torsos and legs nonetheless, the gesture of a silent panic as the couple on the bed scrambled to feign normalcy where normalcy was acutely absent while staring up into the aghast face of Andy's ex-boyfriend.

"Nate!" The gasped syllable came from the right side of the bed, where Andy's fingers urgently pushed sweaty bangs out of her eyes, her other hand maintaining a firm hold on the blanket, right over where her heartbeat had multiplied its pace. Her sex-induced glow all gone, she turned frantic eyes toward familiar ones, ones she'd once seen when she woke up, at the dinner table, and during lovemaking. They were wide now, a look of baffled incredulity she wouldn't normally associate with their owner, and even so, as he silently gaped at the scarcely decent pair before him, realization seemed to dawn on Nate's face.

For a while, Andy heard nothing but her own breathing. Miranda was still by her side, but she didn't dare turn her attention on her, not sure whose reaction she was warier of at the moment, hers or Nate's. Before she could wrap her mind around her predicament, though, select a course of action, perhaps one that released the voice trapped in her throat, Nate's eyes blinked several times, the expression on his face morphing into something that almost looked like embarrassment, a silent moment of coming back to Earth, snapping out of a stupor long enough for his legs to start moving again, as if walking out of an apartment that had never belonged to him, where he'd inadvertantly interrupted two strangers he'd never met before.

When he was gone, Andy didn't feel relief. If anything, her chest tightened further, a nauseating feeling gripping her and making her almost lightheaded in her haste to leave the bed. Ironically, she covered her naked body in an oversized T-shirt Nate had also left behind, big enough but not too warm for her to turn into pajamas.

"Nate," she said again from the apartment's doorway, this time a desperate plea instead of a startled breath. He was fast approaching the stairs, but stopped at the sound of his name, granting her his attention. She half-wished he hadn't when no further words came to her. He filled in the silence.

"I should have known, right?" he said with a wry, little laugh and still no answer presented itself in the form of indignance or concordance or even questioning as to the meaning of his statement. Andy, instead, slumped her shoulders with a resigned sigh.

Nate appeared to be having some difficulty extracting the next question from his mouth, his brow wrinkled in contemplation and confusion as the wheels turned inside his head. Finally, he turned fully in Andy's direction and inquired, "Did you even wait until she wasn't your boss before..." He couldn't finish the sentence, but nodded his chin in disgust toward the apartment, currently inhabited only by Miranda.

Shaking her head, Andy weakly replied, "It wasn't like that." She wasn't very convinced by her own statement and had the decency to lower her gaze to the ground, knowing the amount of time that had lapsed between her ditching Miranda at The Place de la Concorde and them jumping into bed together was so insignificant they might as well have done it on Miranda's office desk.

Nate, as always, read her mind perfectly. "That's what I thought."

He wasn't a cruel person, wasn't vicious and hurtful like Miranda. When Miranda wanted to hurt somebody, she was calculating and exacting. She measured every word to its deadliest capacity and never said things in the heat of the moment, never things she didn't mean at least partly. She aimed her venom and she hit the target squarely, eviscerating whichever poor soul happened to be on the receiving end of her malice. Sometimes, Andy thought, she seemed to derive pleasure from it. Nate wasn't like that; he was more like Andy, which was one of the things that had attracted her to him to begin with. He was sweet and caring, he made her laugh and listened to her plights and was overall a _nice_ person, which wasn't something that could be said about everybody.

Which was why his next words came as such a surprise, a downright punch in the gut. "At least now she's getting her money's worth."

Andy's response was a surprise as well, to the both of them, and as soon as her palm made contact with his cheek, she was overcome with regret. Some time later, when her hand would stop tingling and her blood pressure would have settled down, she'd ruminate on where her crude abruptness had come from, as well as Nate's audacity to insinuate such a thing. But for now, she could only stare in shock into her ex's equally stunned eyes, the hand that was rubbing a gradually reddening cheek.

"Nate, I--" she began, an apology pulsing at her tongue. They had both gone too far, spiraled in such a short time, a complete contrast to their mellow, easy-going relationship. But she was the one who had raised her hand, the one who, for the first time, had resorted to violence, and the shame burned in her like a giant, all-consuming flame. Nate, however, was already turning his back on her, his lips pinched in anger even as his eyes had not returned to their regular width, had not fully grasped the last few seconds, and as he was walking away from her, the words died in her mouth. She watched helplessly until the hallway was empty and the sound of his footsteps had ceased and only then slipped defeatedly back into her apartment.

In the bedroom, Miranda was fastening her bra behind her back, the bed an empty mess of rumpled sheets and misplaced pillows.

"You're leaving?" Andy asked in dismay, trying very little to conceal her disappointment.

Miranda, on the other hand, was the picture of calmness and collectedness, and as she picked from the back of a chair a silken blouse that was only slightly wrinkled, she evenly replied, "I think it's for the best."

"Oh," was all that came out of Andy's extensive vocabulary, the single word floating around a hollow background of sudden numbness.

When the world started making a little more sense again and she'd taken a few further steps into the room, Miranda was fully dressed and hoisting a _Prada_ bag onto the crook of her elbow. She paused, then, directing an uncertain look at Andy, a question that wanted to be asked but didn't know how. She went as far as opening her mouth, taking a breath that was almost a sound, but the words that Andy was waiting for never came, and before she could find her own, ask for what she wanted, wrap her head around the bizarre turn the evening had taken, the resounding slam of the door bounced off every wall and furniture and she was alone.

*

They met at a small café: Andy's suggestion (read: plea) and Nate's pick. While she stirred her coffee, stalling, he stared, unyielding.

At last, she put down her spoon and gave him what she owed: "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have slapped you. It wasn't like me."

Giving her a hard look, Nate leaned back in his chair. "Seems you're doing a lot of things lately that 'aren't like you.'"

"Nate, I'm trying to apologize," she sighed. Containing her agitation was already proving to be challenging, but she wouldn't let herself fly off the handle again. "You're the one that implied that..."

"I know. I'm sorry," he conceded. "I didn't mean it. I guess that wasn't like me either." Slowly, his features began to to relax, his back slumping against the seat. "But Andy, you're... I mean, with her? How is that--" He was visibly struggling to finish his sentences, decipher this whole indecipherable situation, and Andy supposed that to any outsider the concept of her and Miranda would be strange, to say the least. Hell, half the time even she couldn't entirely comprehend what she was doing.

"I don't know!" she blurted honestly, trying to convince herself that Nate did have the right to ask. At least a small one. At least he deserved to know what he'd walked in on the previous night in his own apartment. And maybe, just maybe, Andy was dying to get this secret off her chest and she was hanging on to the tiniest shred of an opportunity. The fact that her (begrudgingly) listening ear was her newly ex-boyfriend was less than fortunate, but at this point she decided she'd take what she could get.

"I don't know, Nate," she repeated in resignation. "Can you believe that I have absolutely no idea what we're doing and where this is going?"

"Then why _are_ you doing this?"

She halted. That was, in fact, a reasonable question. A very good one indeed because why _was_ she doing it? How could she justify, to herself if no one else, this crazy, risky, potentionally disasterous relationship she and Miranda had embarked on without so much as stopping to consider the consequences? She couldn't speak for Miranda, of course, but she had no ulterior motives to send her into the arms of a woman twice her age and for that matter, she couldn't imagine a scenario in which Miranda would gain from that either. At the end of the day, Andy realized she had no way to explain how and why she and Miranda had become each other's dirty, little secret besides that basic, human urge, a magnetic pull, the indescribable need to be close to one another.

Maybe they would tire each other out. Maybe they'd keep on fucking each other raw until they got it out of their systems. But in the meantime, they were showing no signs of slowing down and one thing Andy did know was that she had no desire to.

"I guess I shouldn't be surprised," Nate's level voice sliced through her thoughts, making her blink back into the present. How long had she zoned out for, for his attitude to have changed, for his expression to shift into something that was... not acceptance exactly, not forgiveness either. But the fire was gone from his eyes, the fight gone from his shoulders. He didn't look so angry anymore and Andy wondered what she'd unconsciously let her face show for that transformation to occur.

"You're not?" She stared at him in disbelief because that certainly made one of them.

The face he made was hardly an answer, not one Andy could make out at least, but the judgement was still there, the resentment for Miranda Priestly and everything she had changed in Andy's perspective. "I didn't think you'd ever... act on it..." He pointlessly gestured at Andy's person, his lips almost a snarl, as if Miranda was right there in her lap, making out with her before his eyes. "But it was obvious you were..."

"What?" Andy's eyes grew when he trailed off, anxiously anticipating his next words. Had Nate known, suspected, even before she did?

"I don't know." He shook his head. "Infatuated?"

If Andy had taken a sip of her coffee, she would have choked on it. With her clumsiness, might have spilled it on her _D &G_ blouse as well. As it happened, her eyes bulged further. " _What?_ "

"I mean, come on, Andy," Nate countered matter-of-factly. "It was always 'Miranda this, Miranda that.' You were at her beck and call twenty-four-seven."

"I was her _assistant_ ," argued Andy, scarcely able to believe she still, _still_ had to justify the job she had already left to a boyfriend who'd left her, who'd never really, truly supported her tenure at _Runway_. But the relative calm they'd so far managed to maintain was slowly waning and showing signs of derailing into yet another fight and, really, maybe there was _some_ merit to Nate's accusations. After all, it wasn't the twins' science project Andy had been caught doing the previous night.

"Yeah." Nate nodded sarcastically, giving voice to her thoughts. Andy already felt the fight in her dying. "I saw how you were assisting her last night."

"So..." she hesitated. "You knew? All along?"

"Well..." Now he looked uncertain. "I didn't know-know. You know?" He shrugged. "But I guess hindsight's twenty-twenty."

Rubbing a hand across a weary face, Andy sighed. "Nate... I'm sorry." She wasn't entirely sure what she was apologizing for--she likely had no reason to, not any more than he did--but the bitter feeling of hurting someone close to her tightened her chest because when she dug deep into places she had yet to confront within herself, it was clear to her that for all intents and purposes, aside from actually waltzing into the townhouse and climbing into Miranda Priestly's bed, she had been cheating on Nate for much of the last weeks--if not months--of their relationship.

Somewhere down the road, she'd stopped caring and making an effort and instead of her boyfriend, someone else had occupied her thoughts that, even if not sordid, were not entirely typical of a work relationship. It had always been Miranda, she realized. From the moment they'd met. Like some cruel trick of fate, something inevitable, a colossal, wonderful mess that had been bound to happen. And yet, she felt it necessary to clarify, "Nothing happened while we were together. You have to believe me."

"I know," Nate said solemnly. He might hate her guts, he might never forgive her for this, but she hadn't broken his trust, hadn't given him reason, despite everything, to suspect she'd stray and hurt him and, well, that was something.

"I'm sorry," she said again, pointlessly.

"Yeah," said Nate. "Me, too." He wasn't apologizing for anything he'd done per se, and neither was Andy for that matter; it was a morose sort of moment: something good officially coming to an end, and even so, if she had a chance for a do-over, Andy wasn't sure she'd change a thing.

*

That same night, she knocked on the townhouse's door with every intention of waltzing inside and climbing into Miranda Priestly's bed, and when the house's occupant opened the door, it was like a breath of fresh air.

Miranda looked tired; despite the best lotions and serums money could buy and simple, comfortable clothes Andy, up until recently, would have picked for a night out, the stress and hectic pace of the work day showed on her face, and even in spite of the rage that was gradually building in her eyes at the sight of Andy, she was beautiful, like a new beginning.

"Have you lost your mind? The girls are here," she chastised, even though Andy had aimed to arrive well past their bedtime. Still, she added, "Come in, someone might see you," and ushered Andy inside by the arm.

Once the door had closed against the chilly night air outside, Andy wasted no time accusing, "You left." She waited until Miranda was facing her again and then matched her puckered lips. "You just got up and left."

"I assumed I was intruding--"

"Bullshit." One of them had to relent and it sure as hell wasn't going to be Andy, not this time. "You got scared." And even so, she felt her cheeks warming up with the audacity of throwing such a statement at Miranda, exposing a feeling so raw and personal she knew Miranda would never admit to herself, wasn't sure she had yet earned the right to witness.

True to her suspicions, Miranda lifted her chin and cooly uttered, "I'm sure I have no idea--"

"Miranda."

Miranda's lips pinched harder. Her nostrils flared. And if Andy didn't change gears fast, she feared smoke might come out of them.

Shoulders sagging, she took a step closer, even as Miranda took one back, unconsciously, it seemed. Andy felt like a predator, trying to corner a helpless, little animal before it took off in a sprint, and by the look in Miranda's eyes and the vicinity of the stairs, it seemed fairly possible.

"I talked to Nate." Miranda's face remained the same, hard and stone-still, but her throat visibly worked as she swallowed and Andy realized something then, her chest expanding with a bright, warm sensation. "It's over between us," she continued with a decidedly gentler tone. "It has been for a while. Before we... this started."

"I'm... assuming," Miranda muttered, though with some difficulty, her haughtiness less convincing than usual. "I wouldn't have pegged you for an adulterer." Which was ironic coming from her, whose divorce was not yet final, but Andy already felt a smile teasing at the corners of her lips, and when she came even closer, Miranda didn't sprint.

"It just seemed like a personal moment--"

"You are personal," Andy interrupted, stopping only inches short of her personal space. For a brief moment, Miranda's eyes widened, as if this came as complete news to her.

And then, "Yes?" Barely audible, barely there, but real enough, raw enough to give Andy the certainty she needed. She came closer, solemn.

"We said no more running away," she said. "So, that includes you, too."

Miranda looked away, but her chest rose with her breath, her facial muscles relaxing. "I know none of this is ideal and we got off to a kind of... awkward start," Andy said. It was an understatement if crazy-hot sex and very little else were anything to go by; they hadn't yet discussed Andy's unprofessional quitting or Miranda's questionable morals, but it seemed neither felt too anxious to touch on the subjects in the near future. "But I need to know this isn't one-sided. I need to know you're there for me--with me--no matter what happens. 'Cause I'm all in."

In an instant, Miranda's eyes flitted to hers, more honest and alert than she'd ever seen them. This was shaping up to be a real conversation, Andy realized, none of which they'd deigned, dared to have so far. It wasn't Paris or _Runway_ either; this was getting serious-- _Andy_ was getting serious, putting all her cards on the table, opening herself up for Miranda to do with as she pleased. She had never felt more vulnerable, and she prayed like hell that Miranda was on the same page.

Miranda's gaze darted toward her lips, then back up to her eyes, then found some distant spot behind her shoulder. "What are you... proposing?"

Interesting choice of words, Andy mused to herself as her lips twiched again, because as far as relationships went, she'd never found herself proposing one to another person, not since junior high, and yet now it seemed perfectly befitting of the situation. Like everything else about Miranda, this felt like more; what they had had never felt like casual, no-strings-attached sex, but something bigger than both of them, an unknown force pulling them together as if there had never been another way, and even if Andy didn't exactly know what that meant, even if she still had no clue where this was going, at this point she already knew one thing: this was real. And, as she'd told Miranda, she was all in.

"Wanna be my girlfriend?" she asked, unable to keep the silly grin out of her voice. She felt silly. She'd entered the townhouse not five minutes earlier determined to give Miranda a piece of her mind and now she felt downright giddy. If this, they had a future, it was going to be one hell of a rollercoaster ride.

"Oh, for god's sake," said Miranda, rolling her eyes so hard it was a miracle they came back around. But then again, maybe not all things about her were unpredictable.

"I wanna be your girlfriend," Andy persisted out of sheer impudence and felt brave enough to rest a hand on Miranda's hip.

Even as she shivered at the touch, Miranda admonished at once, "Stop saying that word."

"What would you rather I called you then?" Andy mumbled even as she began nosing below her ear, where she knew Miranda was sensitive. The skin below her lips erupted in goosebumps.

"Nothing," Miranda snapped, but when Andy licked, her breath caught. "It-- we... it doesn't need a name, alright? It is what it is." Uh-oh, she was growing frustrated--time for drastic measures. Flashing her teeth, Andy bit down where she'd licked--not hard enough to leave a mark, but enough to make Miranda gasp and then moan.

"Aww," she cooed, wrapping her arms around Miranda's neck. Leaning back, she smiled at Miranda's flushed cheeks. "You're so romantic." This time, the eye roll was accompanied by a long-suffering sigh, but Miranda had yet to kick her out of the house. "You know, we still need to pick up where we left off. We were kinda interrupted last night."

And just like that, Miranda's glare vanished as if it'd never been, making way for a visibly growing interest. "Is that so?" Her eyes smouldered and it was Andy's turn to shiver.

"I haven't seen your bedroom yet."

There was still much to discuss, now more than ever when they'd said the words, put them out there and their bubble was about to burst. Perhaps that wasn't an appropriate analogy; this felt more like something being torn open, thread by thread, exposed to the real world. Nate had been the one to pull the first thread, perhaps before they were quite ready, and now it was up to them to unravel the rest, some threads harder than others, some freeing. There were Miranda's children to consider, there were Andy's friends and family; there was the whole world to come out to, in more ways than one, and questions neither had been ready to ask themselves, self-reflections they would have to be prepared to face. A challenging time was ahead of them and their lives were about to get a lot messier, as was the case with most good changes.

But for now, Miranda was taking Andy's hand and leading her up the stairs, and perhaps the rest could wait for later. Perhaps, with one thing torn open, they were assembling together something new, stronger. Thread by thread.


End file.
